Our Holiday in Brittany

This weekend it has felt like summer is well and truly over.  I've been going through my holiday photos.  It brought back what a lovely holiday we had in Brittany this year, with the other Mrs Fox & family, and I wanted to capture a few memories.  

We were initially looking for a camping holiday in France.  Little Louis Fox wanted to go on a ferry in the car - he was very specific!  I'd never been to Brittany before, but I remembered friends who went regularly raving about it as a unique region of France.  I started exploring the possibility of camping, or staying in a gite, and then a friend offered their parent's holiday home for 2 weeks at the end of August.  We didn't need to be asked twice and stayed in Penvins, just outside Vannes.

The medieval town of Vannes was beautiful, and we enjoyed exploring it:

I must confess my favourite shop was also in Vannes, la belle-iloise.  An entire shop of tinned sardines (and other fish).  

I know I am a sucker for good packaging, but, I loved this shop, and I have never before bought a tin entirely full of tins of fish, but from this shop I was happy to do so.

Vannes is in Morbihan on the south west coast of Brittany.  Morbihan is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution in 1790. The only French department whose name comes from the Breton language.  It is particularly famous for the Carnac stones, ancient megaliths which predate and are more extensive than those at Stonehenge.

After a soggy spring and summer, we Foxes were so ready for a holiday by the time it got to August. Busy with work and a family of young children we were looking for a seaside holiday with sunshine and nothing more strenuous than choosing which holiday book to read, and deciding which beach to go to.  We got that and so much more.  We had such a wonderful, relaxing time with the children.

The weather remained beautiful and we stayed only a 2 minute walk from the closest beach and spent almost every day there.  The children loved; shell collecting, sandcastle making, swimming in the sea and became experts at tip-toeing through rock pools in pursuit of crabs.  We kept them in buckets and then ended each day with the 'traditional' racing of the crabs back to the sea.

With shells abundant on the beaches we all found ourselves becoming slightly obsessed with collecting them.  As ever when on holiday I find myself coming up with new ideas for crafts and I've plans in mind for the many shells that we have brought home.   

Where we were in Morbihan, despite it being a popular destination for holiday makers, the coastline is unspoilt.  Development seems to be done so much more sensitively than in the UK and other parts of Europe I have visited.  I was inspired and recharged by the natural beauty around me in Brittany.

Ah, Brittany was wonderful:  We ate good food and then cycled it off on trips along the costal paths. All the little foxes are now cycling confidently.  And singing out French greetings and thanks to anyone who will listen.

We visited Château de Suscinio, and dressed as Medieval knights and ladies.

We found some great children's craft magazines.  Here is a photo of some of Little Una Fox's favourite things in France.  Who remembers Barbapapa?

There is so much more I could say about what a wonderful destination Brittany in general and Morbhian in particular is, but I need to go to sleep, so, here are a couple of lists:

My favourite things in Brittany;

the people - so friendly - really, they are so kind to useless Brits who can barely mumble "Bon-jour",

beaches,

cidre,

galettes Bretonnes,

sardines,

warm bread and chocolate and almond croissants bought from the bar in the village every morning.

Still to do;

the islands in the gulf of Morbihan,
the jazz festival in Vannes,

eat more seafood,
kite surfing,

try to speak more French.

How was your Summer Hols?